


Prince of Hope

by crowcawcaw



Series: After Graduation [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowcawcaw/pseuds/crowcawcaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of three parallel stories succeeding 'After Graduation-The Beginning.' This one will follow Naegi and Kirigiri's quest to uncover the mysteries of Despair, find the Resistance, confront the past, and face their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prince of Hope

Naegi stood in the cramped bathroom; running his toothbrush under the facet and making a rather bemused and rueful effort to comb his down his bedhead. After five minutes he gave it up as a bad job and returned to the table. He was rather relieved to find Togami was no longer on the line. He had been his characteristically grouchy self, taking it out on the two of them with some mean spirited insinuations Naegi didn’t quite understand, but took to mean he should probably comb his hair after all.

 “So, uh, did Togami-kun manage to pick the lock he wanted?” He asked.

“Mmhmm,” Kirigiri hummed distractedly, clicking through several tabs of documents on the laptop screen.

“Er, great,” said Naegi. He wanted to ask exactly what it was _they_ were going to do next, but it was probably best to leave Kirigiri to her thoughts. He decided to wash out the stove pot of rice porridge while he waited, and dragged it back to the bathroom. She’d tell him when she needed him, she always did. Still, he wished he could be as certain and active in understanding their best next course of action. Naegi had an inkling he was just starting to come down off of the mind numbing relief that they wouldn’t be murdered inside Hope’s Peak. This was their new reality…but what _was_ this? He felt completely lost. All he knew is that it felt essential to _do_ something now that it was just the two of them. All he knew was that he could trust Kirigiri to know what it was.

He returned the pot and sat down, staring vacantly at his knees – waiting patiently as Kirigiri continued to click through her files. He was almost dozing off (an uncomfortable doze which wove in and out images of his dead classmates), when she finally spoke. Her cool (but living) voice a comfort which awoke him immediately.

“How do you feel about heading out again, Naegi-kun?” She said.

“Wha – oh yeah!” He said. “Yeah…definitely. Are we going to start looking for the Resistance?”

“Traces of them will certainly be on our list of evidence to gather.” She acknowledged. “But I think it would be foolhardy to just expect to stumble upon them. In order to understand the nature and the path people who still have hope have taken, what we need to do is uncover exactly how despair spread. If we can find out how Junko caused all this, then we can logically deduce how the people who have been successful have resisted it.”

“That makes sense I guess,” Naegi said, though he felt a little scared contemplating what Monobear had called “The Most Despair Inducing Incident of Mankind.” He wasn’t sure he wanted know the truth, when whatever it was had been so terrible it had rent their world asunder. But Kirigiri did, he could see it in the familiar far off glint of her gaze, already trying to puzzle out what he couldn’t even begin to grasp. After all, that was what it meant to be a true detective, she had said. _One who always seeks the truth, however unpleasant it may be._ Perhaps that was the difference between the two of them during the trials. He’d only sought the truth because it’d been the only way – to save as many of his friends as possible. But it had been horrible to know the truth for its own sake. He’d never wanted to believe any of it. He wanted to close his eyes and cover his ears and never have to remember who had been compelled to kill and why and how ever again. He was just like most people – he thought – ignorance was bliss.

“I’ve found the old coordinates descriptions of the nearest military base and the rather important secret service headquarters beneath them.” She said, pushing laptop toward him.

“Oh wow,” Naegi scrolled slightly through a document filled with pages upon pages of a small font print, interspersed with floor plans and embedded surveillance footage. He didn’t think he’d ever finish being impressed with her. “So you think we should go here?”

“Government intelligence agencies and armed forces are – were – in place exactly for the purpose of combatting threats to society. Junko was a terrorist, and the moment her threat revealed itself the government would have mobilized to stop it. By going here we should be able to find out why they failed. How Junko incapacitated the institutions we specifically designed to deal with the unexpected…that should tell us a lot about what we still face with forces of Despair today. And how the Resistance and ourselves should act to combat them.”

Naegi nodded, feeling rather in awe at her succinct dissemination.

“Alright,” He said. “Let’s do it, then.”

“It’s far however…” She said frowning. “We’ll probably have to stop to rest both on our way there and back.”

“Can’t we take the bikes from the sporting goods store?” Naegi asked. He was referring to the one the four of them had found during their sojourn into the closest commercial area yesterday – stocking up Hagakure and Aoi on backpacking supplies. While in a general state of dilapidation like everything else, Naegi had been hopeful to find that lots of supplies could still be scavenged (including backpacks, extra clothing, and preserved food). It made him feel better about all their chances.

“That’s a good idea.” She told him, “but I worry about being seen – I think it’s still important to keep a low profile for a while. I actually think we should travel under the cover of nightfall. How do you feel?”

“Yeah that’s fine.” Naegi said, not wanting to mention the apprehension he felt at creeping across the dead city in the dark. Heck, he didn’t like walking around in the dark when he lived in his comfortable and quiet suburban neighborhood. But if that’s what it took, he told himself determinedly, of course it was fine. “So, uh, what should we do in the meantime?”

“Pack for the trip. Then just rest up I guess…” Kirigiri trailed off. Not for the first time did Naegi wish Hagakure and Aoi were already back with them. He was a bit saddened to realize that, after everything they’d been through, now that they were alone and not in immediate danger he didn’t know what to say to Kirigiri. What was there possibly left to ask or say that would make them feel better and not inevitably worse? There had to be something!

“So, uh, Kirigiri-san – ” He began finally, throwing caution to the winds. “What do you like to do for fun? When you’re not solving mysteries or anything like that,” He added quickly. She looked up at him from the laptop, surprised.

“For…fun?”

“Yeah! Like uh, read a book. Or watch TV or play videogames. Or…play tennis or listen to music or go for a walk...” He trailed off, Kirigiri was smiling at him.

“Uh…or something more interesting! I mean those are things just kind of average kids like to do after all.” He stammered out under her amused gaze.

“Well,” She placed a single gloved finger on her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose I enjoyed shogi,”

“Shogi!” repeated Naegi a little too loudly. “I mean, uh, that’s great! I was always pretty rubbish at it. It makes sense you’d be good at it, it involves a lot of strategy – right?”

“Sure,” She said.

“Do you have it on your computer? Maybe we could play a few games.” Naegi offered. “I probably won’t offer you much competition, but it’d pass the time.”

“I’d like that,” She said.

With a few clicks the shogi board was up on the screen. It didn’t take much longer for Naegi to be losing badly.

“Oh don’t move there Naegi-kun,” said Kirigiri, undoing his move.

“Eh? Why?”

“Well, because I’d move this there, and there – regardless of if you move here or here I can take you and your king will be in check.” She said, demonstrating and resetting the moves again.

“Oh…” Naegi examined the board, his brow ruffled in concentration. “Uh…should I move here?”

“Better,” She said. “When we finish this game I’ll talk you through the opening of the next one. The main problem was that your set-up was faulty – you’ve left yourself completely open.”

On the whole the afternoon felt almost normal. After a few games they broke for lunch – Naegi threw some canned vegetables into Kirigiri’s ramen to make a soup that wasn’t even that bad. Then they took a small nap, called to check on Hagakure and Aoi, and as evening fell packed bags for the overnight and drank a whole pot of coffee.

“Your turn,” Kirigiri said. She exited the bathroom, dressed in a lithe black sports jacket and yoga pants extending into her boots. Her silvery lilac hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, throwing her face into sharp relief. Naegi forced himself to look back at the soup, suddenly bashful. Kirigiri looked ready to just melt skillfully into night, like a thief or spy from an action movie.

“Here, put these on,” She stepped forward. “I grabbed them at the sport store. They’re the best you have, given the circumstances.”

Naegi looked back up again, taking the bundle of clothing from her. “Oh, t-thanks,”

He went into the washroom and dressed in the dusty black hoodie and sweatpants. His red converse poked out idiosyncratically. His reflection in the mirror reflected a boy who looked a lot more like a gloomy kid in gym class than anyone prepared to make a nighttime escapade to solve a mystery. _Oh well._

“Ready?” Kirigiri asked him as he stepped out.

“Yeah,” replied Naegi, “Let’s do it!”

They slung the backpacks over their shoulders and ascended the ladder, climbing out from under the shack and straightening in the open air. The sky was still blazing orange with the sunset; the haze of pollutants which covered the horizon striating the sky with weird, coppery fuzz. With barely a moment’s pause Kirigiri began plunging across the field and into the river bed. Naegi followed as the horizon line was hidden behind the grove of trees and the sky quickly darkened – leaving them in the whole darkness of night by the time they climbed out of the ravine and into the suburban neighborhood.

“We’ll be heading toward the coast,” Kirigiri breathed, pausing to orient herself. “This way,”

Naegi had been worried about their being able to see in the dark, but it wasn’t as bad as he had feared. With their eyes adjusted to the dim light, it was possible to pick their way through the ruined streets at a good pace under the large moon and a spackling of stars. Almost too good a pace. Naegi again muffled a yawn with the overlong sleeves of the dark sweatshirt. He really should have had more coffee, but there’d been no cream or sugar – he’d had to supress a grimace with every sip while Kirigiri calmly downed three cups of the black stuff! They had stopped for a snack at around two in the morning, and were walking through what was now part of the south downtown, but finally the sky began to lighten, and Naegi could barely keep his eyes open.

“Time to sleep I think oh – ” Kirigiri’s words were interrupted by a small yawn, “Excuse me Naegi-kun,”

“It’s okay Kirigiri-san,” He said, he couldn’t help chuckling a little. “Really, I’ve been falling asleep this whole time, it’s a good thing you know the way. I honestly don’t know how you do it,”

“Yes, well,” She said with a weary smile. “I’ve only been taking us in the general direction. Now that we’re nearer though I’ll review the maps, check where we are and what streets we’re going to have to take now.”

“Okay, but sleep first though!” Naegi reminded her.

“Yes,” She agreed. “Sleep first.” She began scanning their surroundings and Naegi did the same.

“Wanna try there?” He pointed at a carpet store behind a smashed truck. “The truck kind of blocks it off, and we could go lie down in the back on the carpets. It’d be better than the floor or chairs somewhere, I think.”

“Good catch Naegi-kun!” Kirigiri smiled at him and touching his shoulder lightly as she walked by. For some reason his stomach seemed to flip-flop. Shaking off the sensation, he followed her across the street. At the door, she promptly picked the lock, and they made their way into the shop.

Back when destruction was rampant it seemed someone had thrown a moltov cocktail through the window– the displayed carpets were largely burnt and acrid smelling. However there was enough unburnt in the back storage room for them to spread out and lie down on.

“I’ve never been in a carpet store,” Naegi said tiredly, taking off his hoodie and balling it up under his head to make a pillow. “It’s pretty weird, with all the carpets wrapped up on all those rotating…pole things.”

Kirigiri chuckled. “Goodnight Naegi-kun,”

“Night Kirigiri-san,”

They awoke at around three in the afternoon. Naegi laid out something resembling a meal and Kirigiri pulled out her laptop and jotted down on paper the directions for where they would be going next.

“May I check on Hagakure-kun and Asahina-san, Kirigiri-san?” He asked hesitantly, wondering anxiously about how they had spent the first night of their backpacking trip. Kirigiri looked up and frowned thoughtfully.

“I suppose…”

Though confused at her hesitation, Naegi wasted no time in questioning it. He accepted the proffered computer and sat it in his lap readily.

“Uh, Alter Ego?” He began, “Are you there?”

Alter Ego materialized over Kirigiri’s notes, an immediate smile twitching up the dimples on the program’s face. Naegi smiled back.

“Hi there,” He said, feeling the familiar but never any less painful spasm of remembrance in his chest as the ghost of Chihiro beamed up at him. _Thank you, Chihiro-san_ , Naegi thought. _For creating Alter Ego, and leaving him for us to find._ Because of Chihiro, Alter Ego had not only he’s saved all their lives, but was keeping them together now. Chihiro had been a truly amazing person…

Naegi thought fleetingly of the two years he must’ve actually gotten a chance to know, really know, Chihiro. He immediately struggled to push it from his mind. He couldn’t think about that, not yet, not when there was still so much to do. Besides…it still seemed so unreal, that they had all been old friends. He couldn’t remember it, any of it! Only an ache of familiar longing. That and the feeling of terror which rose and fell within him that he might someday regard horrors that already haunted every space between the moments with an even more painful stroke of hindsight.

“C-can you call Asahina-san and Hagakure-kun for me please?” He asked, stumbling over the words after an awkward pause in his hurry to avoid the thoughts closing in around him.

“Of course Naegi-kun!” Alter Ego replied. There was a moment for the dialing tone.

“Naegi-kun!” Aoi’s face, red and a bit obscured by mussed bangs appeared. Naegi grinned.

“Asahina-san! How’s everything going? How was your first day backpacking?”

The camera shook unevenly. It seemed Aoi was in the process of hiking up a forested hill. The bulging backpacking equipment filled out the space behind her, but Naegi could hear the crunch of leaves and twigs with each step and the arrhythmic panting of Hagakure presumably beside her.

“Oh, alright I guess,” She said. “It’s really nice to be out here in the wilderness, it almost feels like nothing’s wrong at all! I miss you all terribly, though,”

“We miss you too,” affirmed Naegi warmly. “But we won’t be separated long, don’t forget!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty great, right? I’m getting all in touch with my patron earth spirits out here!” came Hagakure’s laid-back drawl from off-screen. Aoi rolled her eyes obviously.

“Thank goodness for that,” She said, her tone of voice suddenly distinctly grumpy.

“Hey Aoi-chi, lemme say hi to Naegi-chi and Kirigiri-chi,” said Hagakure.

“Stop _calling_ me that!” She snapped. “And they can hear you just fine! Go on, say hello!”

“Well I want them to see my face, see?”

“Believe me; they’re not missing much,”

“Well I tied my hair back- eh, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on guys, don’t fight!” said Naegi hastily, Kirigiri was looking over in their direction disapprovingly and this time he could hazard a guess why; Aoi and Hagakure we’re having their conversation much too loudly, even through the computer’s speakers. Suddenly Naegi had a flash of inspiration.

_Can you turn down their volume?_ He typed on the keyboard. Alter Ego’s face appeared in the corner of his screen and winked. The bickering on the other line suddenly became a lot quieter. Naegi typed back a winking emoticon, trying to suppress a smile at the little joke they were sharing.

“And _that’s_ why it took us two hours to set up the tent last night – backpacking experience my foot!” Aoi was saying. “and…Naegi-kun are you listening?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” He said hastily. “Look, please don’t be too rough on each other, guys, we have Togami-kun and Fukawa-san for that. I know you two are really good at staying positive, uh, and working together!”

“I suppose you’re right, Naegi-kun,” Said Aoi begrudgingly.

“Yeah! Listen to Naegi-chi, he’s a man with a plan!” declared Hagakure cheerfully. Looking like she was only barely supressing another blatant eye roll, Aoi forced a smile.

“Riiiight. So, anyway, what have you and Kirigiri been up to?” She asked. Before Naegi could answer Kirigiri did.

“We’re doing some important research,” She said quickly, stepping across the room to seat herself neatly beside Naegi – who couldn’t help but feel his heart skip a beat as she leaned across him to make eye contact with Aoi.

“We’ll let you know what we’ve achieved when we’re through,”

“Okay,” said Aoi, seemingly content with this explanation. “I like your workout clothes by the way, Kirigiri-san! You look ready to kick some butt!”

“Hmm, well that is the idea,” She said, the smallest of smiles on the corner of her lips. “If you don’t mind we’ll let you get back to your search, and us to ours. Don’t worry about contacting us – we’ll call you soon.”

“Oh okay,” Said Aoi, looking a little sad the conversation was ending so soon. “Goodbye then! See you soon!”

“Yeah, goodbye! Good luck you guys!” Naegi said, feeling a similar disappointment. Aoi’s picture winked out and the screen returned to Kirigiri’s open files. He turned to look at her.

“What was that about?” He asked, unable to keep a note of accusation from creeping into his voice.

“It’s best not to communicate too much about either of our circumstances or location,” She said, unperturbed. “We don’t know who may be listening in on either side, or even over the connection.”

“I guess,” Said Naegi feeling unconvinced. He felt sure the connection was safe – Alter Ego was monitoring it and he trusted him implicitly. And as for their location, Aoi and Hagakure were in the middle of the forest and they were buried in a carpet shop, who could really be listening in? But he had to continue to trust Kirigiri, no matter how extreme her precautions seemed. What did he know about detective work and secrets, anyhow.

“Well, uh – Alter Ego could you call Togami-kun and Fukawa-san now please?” He said.

“Actually cancel that request, please,” Interjected Kirigiri as Alter Ego materialized again.

“Why?” asked Naegi, surprised. Kirigiri sighed.

“Unlike Asahina-san and Hagakure-kun, Togami-kun won’t be satisfied just to “check in”,” She explained. “You know that. He’ll recognize our surroundings are different right away and try to figure out exactly where we are and what we’re doing.”

“Is that really so bad?” asked Naegi disappointedly. “It sounds like you don’t trust Togami-kun at all! I know he hasn’t always been the nicest person, but he’s never actually _tried_ to hurt any of us. He stood with me…with all of us, to resist Junko and escape! It’s, it’s important that we stay friends. We’re a team now. Even you said that, when we first got out.”

“Of course I’d like us to be a team. It’s crucial to build friends and allies in a time like this. But Naegi-kun… my trust in you is an exception, not the rule, to the life I’ve chosen to lead.” She said tiredly.

“I’d argue that friendship is built on trust,” Naegi insisted, “If we don’t trust Togami-kun, how can he know that he can trust us. We should call,” He reached to press Alter Ego’s command key on the laptop and start the call, but Kirigiri stopped his hand.

“There’s a reason you’re you,” She stated cryptically. “But I’m asking you to please abstain just a little longer, until we complete this reconnaissance. Remember Togami-kun said he might have been followed. At worse this call could place them and ourselves in danger if Despair tries to spring them for information about our whereabouts.”

“You…you don’t – ” _really think that could happen?_ The question caught in Naegi’s throat. But it could, he thought. It wouldn’t…it just _can’t_. But still…it could. He thought of the shadowy figures they had seen on their walk to Kirigiri’s hideout. Thought of the bullet holes in shattered windows. The fleeting images Monobear had shown him of rioters in the streets. He’d been trying so hard to supress his fears that he’d almost forgotten that some of them – too many – had a basis in reality and not just in his nightmares. With a sinking feeling, Naegi nodded and lowered his hand.

“When we’re back safe at your hideout,” He avowed resolutely. “Then we’ll call.”

“Good idea,” Kirigiri conceded. She sat back and lifted up her sheet of notes.

“Now please listen closely, Naegi-kun. I’m not sure what we’ll be facing in regards to the condition of the base. It’s possible it’s been completely annihilated, access has been blocked, that Despair has been controlling it, or it is otherwise occupied or not.”

“So here’s what I think we should do,” she continued, spreading out her notes in front of him. “Let’s go over some plans. Once the sun sets, we’ll leave.”

When enough time had passed since sunset that Kirigiri deemed the cover of darkness acceptable, the two stepped quietly out of the carpet shop and into the cooling night air. Although it was a reprieve from the stuffy warmth of the inside, Naegi quickly found himself much more nervous than relaxed. The intensity of creeping through the dark city the night before had somewhat mediated as the hours had passed, but now however he could feel his body start tensing up. It was a familiar sensation, one that had accompanied the ‘investigation period’ after the terrible murders at Hope’s Peak. He supposed this was another investigation in a way. Naegi walked quickly behind Kirigiri’s swinging ponytail as they walked further downtown to where the sea breeze began ruffling his hair, the smell of oil became overpowering, and an unobtrusive but heavily fenced naval base appeared down the hill before them.

Kirigiri silently pointed down to the side of the facility composed of several very long buildings – the shipping and receiving buildings. They walked down the last of the rubble filled streets until finally they were at the huge barbed wire gate.

“We’re lucky,” Kirigiri murmured with a frown, pointing. From here he could see there was a gaping hole that looked as if it had been ripped through the fence by huge and impossible sharp claws. Naegi shuddered, then followed her underneath the gap – careful to avoid the jagged wire fencing thrusting in at them at odd angles. They continued quickly across the wide and open tarmac, following a track of melted power lines. Everything looked oddly scorched, like a fireball had barrelled through it and, but really the base had no damage extremely remiss to the surrounding city. When they arrived at the side of one of the cylindrical storage buildings, Kirigiri slowed and began to stop every 20 meters at the iron bolted supports to examine the foundation of the building. Naegi could tell she had decided the general devastation of the military base’s surface looked too similar to the rest of the city to warrant intense scrutiny. Rather she had decided to begin immediately searching for the crux of their investigation: what her research had identified as a top-security underground bunker, a place the government’s elite military service used to monitor and respond to severe threats to Japan.

As they finally passed from the first storage building onto the next, Naegi realized he was overwhelmed for the second time in the past few days with the surreal feeling that he was now in some sort of secret-agent movie. How could such a secret and elite place have always been operating in the city he was born? Certainly had never been taught such a place even existed in school, and yet mere hours before Kirigiri had told him in a lot of detail that went over his head about the clues she’d found in her past self’s files about its location and potential points of access, should the need to investigate it closer arise. He watched, bewildered as she kneeled again, reaching her fingers into the holes of a storm drain.

Kirigiri returned to her feet, looking triumphant.

“Thirteenth support beam,” She told him.

“Y-you found it?” His heart leapt. _How had she found the secret base by examining a storm drain?_ Again he wondered at Kirigiri’s fantastic set of skills that had given her the title of Super-High-School-Level Detective. She was truly amazing.

“Yes now shhh,” She said with a smile. “We need to find out how to get into this storage building.”

“Uh a long and heavy piece of metal from the outside street,” Naegi whispered, struggling to remember her plans and backup plans from earlier that evening, “To use as a crowbar if the lock and chains on a building has been sufficiently damaged. It definitely looked scorched – shall we do that?”

“We might not need to,” Kirigiri said, taking a step back and squinting critically up at the tall, wavy steel walls. “Whatever blast went off here it shattered a five inch layer of glass in those narrow windows up top.”

Naegi stared balefully up at them.

“You don’t mean…climb through them, do you?” He asked incredulously. “Would…would we even fit? Not to mention getting up there in the first place! Using a makeshift crowbar and your lock picking skills sounded like a lot less risky plan, no offense Kirigiri-san,”

“Ah but it’d be unnecessarily noisy, and who knows how long it would take to work,” She replied. Kirigiri turned and walked back to the front of the building, stopping at the drainpipe which ran straight down the building’s corner edge. She rapped it sharply.

“Uuuh,” groaned Naegi as he caught up to her, “Kirigiri-san, really? This is dangerous!”

“Come on, Naegi-kun,” She said bracingly. “Surely you spent time as a child climbing trees?”

“Climbing trees isn’t the same as climbing a drainpipe up the sides of a military storage unit in the middle of the night,” He pointed out.

“But,” He added with a sigh, “If you really think it’s the best way,”

Kirigiri was already removing her boots and socks and placing them inside her backpack, pulling out a coil of rope she had packed.

“Skin sticks easily to cold metal,” She informed him. “If one grips their fingers on the sides of the drainpipe and places their bare feet on either side of the buildings corner, it should be fairly simple to make our way up. Once there we can tie a rope,”

Naegi nodded, but couldn’t help but notice nervously that she didn’t remove her gloves. Surely those would be slippery? He should recommend she take them off, but obviously Kirigiri would have thought of that. Was she still uncomfortable with her scars? He thought of her tiny – beautiful – little hands, so cruelly burned. He had only ever seen her remove the gloves to reveal them once, when the outcome of a school trial depended on it. She had seemed calm enough then… but it must really bother her if she wore gloves to hide them all the time, Naegi thought, even at mealtimes and in a situation like this. With him. In the _dark_. He felt a bit sad.

“I’ll go first Kirigiri-san,” he blurted. “I’ll go first and tie the rope. You’re right; I did a lot of climbing as a kid,”

Kirigiri paused and considered him, pressing a finger to her lips thoughtfully.

“I don’t know, Naegi-kun. You’re pretty important and not very lucky,” She finally said.

“No I’m not! I mean, well, you’re the same!” He shot back lamely. “Let… let me do this, Kirigiri-san!”

“Alright,” She said with small shrug. Naegi immediately sat down and began unlacing his shoes while Kirigiri came up behind him and tied one end of the rope to his pack. He took off his socks and stood back up, feeling a chill run up the soles of his feet as they touched the cold asphalt. He approached the drainage pipe, reached up above his head and gripped his hands around the edges of it tightly. _Here goes nothing,_ he thought, before doing an awkward leapfrog jump to plant his feet on either side of the wall. Like Kirigiri had said, they seemed to stick fast. He shimmied his hands up another section of drainpipe and committed the same vaulting leg action, feeling rather stupid.

The humiliating frog like hopping was working, however. Up, and up, and up. Soon Naegi’s arm and thigh muscles were quivering, and every time he did the little leap it was smaller as he feared plummeting to his doom. Naegi stared staunchly at the wall, refusing to glance at the ground below, but he still felt a little heady as he realized how far he must be up the ground. The rope swayed back and forth behind him in the wind. The building was what – 20 meters tall? He glanced up. The window couldn’t be more than 5 meters away.

“You’re almost there, Naegi-kun,” Kirigiri called softly. Naegi was focusing too hard on breathing – air puffing in and out of him in little short bursts to respond. _Just a little further_ , he told the backflips in his stomach. Aaaaand _there_. He was at the top corner, the window parallel on his left hand side.

“Wh…what now?” He called breathless. A new type of panic was rising within him. _How was he supposed to reach the window?_ It looked so far away!

“Swing your leg up through the window, then reach over with your arm,” Kirigiri instructed him.

“I…I can’t-!”

“Yes you can! Ready Naegi-kun, do it on my count. One, two…”

_Three_. Clenching his teeth and gripping the pipe tightly, Naegi swung his body left an upward, hooking his calf and ankle into the thick window bracket. His heart thundered like a stampeded of rhinos as he clung awkwardly, clammy and unbalanced.

“Now your arm, Naegi!”

Jamming the fingers of his right hand into the miniscule space behind the pipe, Naegi thrust his trembling left arm out over the space, grabbed the sill, and continuing the motion heaved his body up into the window. He wriggled up into a sitting position, shaking and trying desperately to catch his breath.

“Y-you’re crazy Kirigiri-san!” He panted, staring down at the small dark shape that was her. “How was that a good idea?!”

“You did great,” She called; Naegi was a bit affronted to hear a smile in her voice. Hadn’t she seen he’d nearly fallen to his death?

“Now can you see a place to tie off up there?”

“Uuuuh,” Naegi turned to peer inside the warehouse.

“It’s pitch dark in here,”

“Try the flashlight,” Kirigiri reminded him patiently. _Oh yeah_. Naegi pulled the flashlight from his pack and shone it inside the warehouse, suppressing a gasp as the light fell against an ominous magnitude of huge stacks of crates and canisters stacked from floor to ceiling in rows upon rows. Refocusing on the task at hand, he took account of the immediate surroundings.

“There’s a hanging ceiling light I could reach,” He called down, a bit uncertainly. “Think it’ll hold?”

“Tie it up and figure it out yourself,” said Kirigiri, the dark shape folding her arms.

Naegi untied the rope from his backpack and wrapped it around his hand. He tentatively knelt, then stood with his body pressed against the wall on the inside ledge, turning his head to face the lamp which hung out about a meter away. It was a big, industrial strength cone lamp, almost as big around as he was tall, and Naegi was relieved to find it only moved the slightest amount under his weight as he reached out and grabbed it, tying carefully the knot Kirigiri had taught him hours earlier.

“I…I think that’ll do it,” Naegi said in relieved amazement, giving the rope a hearty tug. “I’ll hold it too, Kirigiri. Climb on up!”

“I’m on my way!” He heard her say, the rope suddenly tightening as she gripped it and began the climb up. Naegi was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see him smiling in relieved gratification. He’d done it! Really done it! He’d done a dangerous and heroic thing to advance them in the right direction, rather than sit idly by. Well, he’d done what Kirigiri had told them to do to advance in the right direction… that is. And that was nothing new. He reached out a hand to help Kirigiri up as she appeared beneath the sill after a quick and efficient climb. _She probably could have done this in her gloves after all, no problem,_ he realized, suddenly embarrassed.

Kirigiri took the rope and swiftly tied its end tightly around the drainpipe before throwing the rest of it down into the warehouse.

“Alright,” She said briskly, flicking on her own flashlight. “Now let’s climb down,”

Despite the circumstances, Naegi couldn’t help but feel he was committing the crime of ‘breaking and entering’ as he touched his feet down on the warehouse floor. The building (which somehow seemed even impossibly larger on the inside) seemed to hold a distinct air of forbiddenness, as well as being a several degrees cooler. As the pale beams of their flashlights traveled around their surroundings, the towers of goods seemed to loom like ancient chapel walls – chastising two children who were clearly never meant to climb through a broken window in search of an entrance to an underground stronghold at one in the morning.

“Which support beam, Naegi-kun?” Kirigiri tested him as they kneeled to put their shoes back on, her whisper in his ear to avoid what would surely be an echo in the cavernous structure.

“Thirteenth support beam, Kirigiri-san,” Naegi murmured back. She gave a satisfied nod, then strode ahead – lighting their way into the dusty, cavernous blackness ahead of them.

A large stack of palely colored shipping containers were stacked in front of the thirteenth support beam. Kirigiri walked around all sides, examining it carefully. Naegi couldn’t help but wonder, now that they were here, if they weren’t quite over their heads. They were _inside a military base_ trying to sneak into _another,_ _more secret_ military base. Never in his wildest dreams…

Suddenly he wondered if this was something Mukuro Ikusaba, the Super-High-School-Level Soldier had been good at. A chill run through him as he thought of the dead girl for the first time since the final trial. It was then he and his classmates had uncovered the incredible reveal that Mukuro had been with them from the start, masquerading as her twin’s double only to die in the very first week. Suddenly Naegi wondered, really wondered about the girl he’d only known in his living memories as Junko Enoshima, before the real Junko had revealed herself. Naegi had thought of her as nice, if a little overpersonable, and was just as sad as he was horrified at her violent murder. Murder by her own sister, he now knew. Standing still and silent in the warehouse as Kirigiri paced up and down the stacks, Naegi couldn’t fight a new wave of revulsion from overpowering him. _How am I supposed to think of her…remember her, now?_ He thought helplessly. _She seemed like she had stood with us…she was murdered by her own sister. I don’t remember the two years I spent at Hope’s Peak, we even could have been friends, the way she acted._ But Mukuro hadn’t really stood with them, had she? She had thought the plan was different. From what Junko had told them, Mukuro had teamed up with her to make the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Event in the History of Mankind happen. All this was also because of her. Somehow.

…Was that what they were going to find out? Naegi suddenly wondered. Had Mukuro Ikusaba once stood here where they now stood, preparing coolly to cripple the military so they could do nothing while Japan burned?

“Kirigiri-san?” Naegi said urgently, “Do you think we’re here, I mean, do you think we’re going to find out…Mukuro Ikusaba…” He struggled to form his question. For some reason the thought ‘ _she murdered her own sister’_ seemed to be playing on loop in his head, and he couldn’t get it out. For someone to do that…it was terrible. Terrible things were nothing new to him now. But he was thinking of his own sister. Of course he was, though he’d promised he wouldn’t. If she was dead... well it was his fault. He’d agreed to stay in that school. He’d agreed to leave her out there! But why? Why would he have done that, he wouldn’t have unless he had been sure she had been made safe, his whole family…but Monobear’s tape…he couldn’t see _how_ …

Naegi felt sick. Why and how. How and why. It was no use spinning his head in circles. He and Kirigiri would find out the truth about everything, together. That’s why they were here. The first step. He swallowed hard, trying to vanquish the lump in his throat.

“Kirigiri-san – ”

Kirigiri didn’t answer, but suddenly waved him over.

“Well, here’s our entrance,” She said as he approached, sounding oddly grim. Naegi walked to her side focusing on breathing again. “Where there’s supposed to be a combination code under the door lock there’s actually a fingerprint scanner. Look but don’t touch,” She warned, “It could trigger further security checks.”

Naegi bent down and looked under a small metal overhang with his flashlight to see a small, black strip.

“Well it’s amazing you were able to find this place at all,” Naegi said with a sigh, “But it looks like this is the end of the road. How are we supposed to get in without a fingerprint?”

“We’re not,” she said bleakly, pointing her flashlight beam to the floor a few feet away from them.

“whAH-!” Naegi’s yell was stifled immediately by Kirigiri’s gloved hand over his mouth.

“Shhhh,” She pressed urgently. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you,”

Naegi stared in horror. Tangled on the ground were the blackened skeletal remains of two uniformed soldiers, huge Gatling guns lay still clasped in their arms, pointing directly at each other’s chests. The effect was so terrible and surprising it was a while before he found he found he could speak again.

“Did…did they…did they _kill_ each other?” He stammered finally as Kirigiri released him. She walked over and knelt down beside the corpses.

“So it would seem,” She mused, touching one of the bodies lightly and frowning as a residue of dead black flesh came off on her gloves.

“This one’s a special agent, at least.” She said after a close examination. “He didn’t have the physique of an active soldier and he was wearing glasses with a prescription for far-sightedness – in other words reading glasses. It would be possible he was actually employed in the army at a low rank and wore the reading glasses for his job tracking shipments here, but the badge inside his pocket denotes him a man of high rank. The second corpse has a similar level of hierarchy, though not the same one. I’d hazard a guess that both were special agents, but it’s enough for now that we know that this one was.”

“Hmmm, I hate to have to do this… but it’s our best chance,” She said quietly, placing the badges inside her pack before pulling from it a pocketknife.

“Kirigiri-san no!” Naegi gave a strangled cry and stepped forward. “That’s-! …desecrating the dead…” he trailed off queasily. Kirigiri had already sliced off the man’s index finger in a single, swift chop. She picked it up by the bone at its base delicately. Naegi stared at her balefully as she went up to the lock and pressed the saggy, sullied skin of the finger pad against the print sensor. There was a moment of bated breath as they both stood, wondering if death and time had worn away the fingerprint to a point of nonrecognition. Then the door of the container swung silently inward.

“We’re in,” Said Kirigiri softly. Naegi nodded slowly. He stepped forward and shone his light at a staircase running down into the ground, and felt the hair on his neck prickle.

“What do you think we’ll find down there?” He asked nervously.

Business like, Kirigiri pulled one of the plastic baggies from her backpack she had brought for evidence collecting and sealed the finger neatly inside, placing it in an outside pouch of her pack. Naegi looked away, feeling disturbed as he always did with the clavier way Kirigiri treated dead bodies. When he looked back Kirigiri was staring at him, her expression unreadable.

“Only one way to find out,”

Trying to prepare himself for the worst – which he had no idea what it could be but was sure it involved more dead people – Naegi followed Kirigiri into the shipment container and start down the white staircase. When they reached bottom Naegi found themselves stepping over a dented door – apparently been blown off its hinges by an explosion that left soot all up the walls. And it was then Naegi realized he had prepared himself for the worst enough.

“Oh shit!” He swore, jumping violently as their flashlights illuminated the corridor before him. A grip of terror shot through him like an electric shock.

The light of their flashlights washed over old bodies and body parts strewn across the ground, in many cases locked in a rigor mortis embrace with their weapons or each other’s necks. What had happened was at once apparent and impossible to believe.

“Th-they all killed each other?! All of them?” Naegi’s voice leapt several octaves. Monobear’s terrible title for Hope’s Peak, _A School of Mutual Killings_ , sprang unbidden to his mind. Were these more…mutual killings?

“That’s certainly how it appears,” Said Kirigiri. “But how something appears rarely tells the whole story. We may have the ‘how come’ the government failed to respond to the crisis, well, in this case at least – but we still need the ‘why.’ Why did this happen? That’s what is most important to find out.”

“…Okay,” Naegi agreed helplessly. “You’re right. Let’s find out,”

They continued down the carnage filled hallway, ignoring locked doors leading off on either side until they arrived at what could only be called the inner sanctum. It was an enormous, circular room plated with state of the art monitors, computer stations lining the walls and a large round table in the center. The skeletal remains of soldiers were scattered here as well. Naegi collapsed in a mercifully empty chair, feeling exhausted in a multitude of ways. He buried his face in his hands to block out the images out for a moment.

“Ugh. I just can’t believe it,” He said, his voice muffled by his palms. “Any of it,” He felt Kirigiri’s hand rest on his shoulder, and with a little effort, looked up at her.

“It’s time to investigate, Naegi-kun. If you’re ready,” She said. Naegi took a deep breath, then exhaled, long and slow.

“I’ll try,”

Kirigiri squeezed his shoulder in response, then left to begin her rounds as a detective. With a sigh, Naegi stood and decided to try walking around the room the other direction. Perhaps divide and conquer could be a strategy at work here. Or maybe he’d leave the bodies for Kirigiri to look at and he would focus on whatever else might be left on room’s surfaces and floors. Yeah – that sounded good.

He pulled out a notebook Kirigiri had given him and began taking notes – doing an awkward juggling act between it, the pen, and the flashlight whenever he got the urge to write something down. He started with what he knew: _Agents appear to have killed each other._ He shuddered even having to write it down. However he was soon surprised to realize he had to amend it, adding ‘ _or themselves’_ when he found a corpse that by all appearances seemed to have pulled the trigger in its own mouth.

Horrible. But anyway, he’d decided to leave the bodies to Kirigiri’s expert analysis. Time to move on and look for other evidence, Naegi reminded himself. He walked over to the round table at the room’s center, pleased to find as he shone his flashlight over it that there were papers strewn everywhere from the last meeting the secret service had held. He picked one up which appeared to be the outline for what would be discussed:

_Press sec. mtRS1_

_NK recent threats_

_Isl. DBT sub usg_

_Wpns renewal 446R3…_

Naegi skimmed down the page disappointedly, he didn’t understand almost anything on the list, and English letters were used frequently as acronyms. He was about to set the paper down when something caught his eye:

_Abrd Fenrir inf rumors_

Fenrir. That was the international organization of for hire soldiers Mukuro had belonged to. Naegi copied down the words in his notebook. _Could that be important?_ He thought hopefully. He began gathering the rest of the papers, searching for any other mention of Fenrir, but had no luck. Seeing a dark box clutched in a corpses hand, Naegi reluctantly tried to pry it free, trying to avoid getting too close to the hideous grinning skull thrown into sharp relief by the shrunken skin. It still had dark streaks underneath each nostril, a sickeningly thick layer of dried blood…

_Wait, a nosebleed from a gunshot wound to his chest?_ thought Naegi, taking a step back to survey the whole corpse as he finally retrieved the box. _That’s… odd._ He walked around, checking other corpses until he found two others that showed a similar symptom. Naegi knew he really didn’t know anything about gunshot wounds, but because it seemed unusual wrote it down. Then he checked what was in his hand. The small dark box was shut tight, with a slot as if for a keycard. Unable to make heads or tails of it he put it in his backpack.

_Anything else, anything else…_ the monitors were intermittently smashed…there was a gaping hole in the large square air vent in the ceiling… and Kirigiri was climbing on a chair to look up the large square air vent in the ceiling. _What?_

“Kirigiri-san…what are you doing?” He asked. She responded by tossing him a small empty pouch type container that looked like it had once been… well one of those things Naegi’s mom would plug in the wall to make the room smell nice was the only way he could describe it.

“Uh,” He said

“See what you can make of that,” Said Kirigiri, climbing down. “Don’t put it near your face or anything though.”

“Uh, okay?” Naegi stared intently at the pouch, for a few minutes but the only thing else he could gather was that at either end it was perforated with tiny holes.

“Kirigiri-san I really have no idea what this could be. And why shouldn’t I have it near my face?” He looked up expecting to see her, illuminated by her flashlight, but there was nothing but darkness.

“Kirigiri-san? Kirigiri-san!” His voice rose, fearful. He waved his flashlight around the room quickly, panic building. _No no no no, where was she, she couldn’t be gone, she couldn’t –_

“KIRIGIRI-SAN!”

“I’m _here_ Naegi-kun, stop shouting!”

Naegi spun around, Kirigiri was standing in the door to the hallway.

“Wh-what…but you…Kirigiri-san don’t _scare_ me like that!” He reproached angrily. “Don’t just wander off! We’re in an unfamiliar place and it’s the middle of the night! You’re – ”

He jabbed his finger in her direction angrily. “ _You’re_ the one always going on about how we need to be cautious and careful!”

“I _know_ , Naegi-kun calm down. I was just in the hall. There’s something that you need to see.”

“I…” Naegi wasn’t sure he was done being angry – didn’t Kirigiri see how scary and hypocritical it was to still go wandering off on her own? They were a team now. They were supposed to be.

“… _Alright_ ,” Caving to her serious expression, Naegi followed her out to the hall. They walked to the very end, where Kirigiri knelt at the side of a fallen soldier whose gloves seemed had been systematically removed moments earlier.

“Take a look,” She said. “It’s hard to see…but if it hit’s the light just right…”

The gleam of tattoo ink, just a shade off the decomposing flesh, glinted in the light.

“Is that…Fenrir?” said Naegi, amazed. Kirigiri nodded.

“If you’re done with your investigation I think it’s time we get out of here,” She said. “I’ve examined everywhere I wanted too and we need to start heading back as quickly as possible. I have another route planned to take us back, but that also means we’ll need to find a good new place to stay for the night.”

“Oh! Alright,” Naegi agreed, a bit surprised. Although they had been up almost all night, it still felt like they hadn’t accomplished much. He felt he understood even less now why the most Despairing Event in the History of Mankind had occurred than when they had first started out. “Are you sure we found what we came for?”

“I think so,” Said Kirigiri, an air of confidence accompanying her neutral expression.

“Well then let’s get out of here,” agreed Naegi.

The pair retraced their steps up the staircase and down to the window they had climbed through. Exhausted, Naegi somehow managed to scale the rope behind Kirigiri and slide down the drainpipe fireman style, so they could bring down the rope with them and not leave any traces. Soon he was on a dark road under the waning moon again, walking tiredly down the streets Kirigiri directed.

“Can’t say I’m sorry to leave that place behind,” Mumbled Naegi. He was trying to feel calm and hopeful under the moonlight again, but thoughts about his memories of people – and lack of them – kept catching up to him as sure as the shadows did.

“Yes, it was pretty terrible,” Kirigiri concurred. “But we learned a lot,”

“We did?” said Naegi through a yawn.

“Let’s discuss it after a good eight hours of sleep,” said Kirigiri. “Otherwise we’ll simply both be too tired to carry on,”

“Good idea,” said Naegi heartily. They stopped and looked around themselves.

“That sushi bar has tinted windows I think?” suggested Naegi. Kirigiri acted like she hadn’t heard him.

“Naegi-kun…” She said slowly, squinting up something above their heads, at the side edifice of a building that looked like it might have at one time been an expensive hotel… “Is that…”

She walked across the street, out of the shadow and into the moonlight – taking a few steps backward before coming to an abrupt halt.

“Kirigiri-san?” He walked out to her and then followed her gaze.

It was him.

Another huge portrait, spanning several stories and even in the low light Naegi could tell it was boldly colored in black, red, and orange. The words emblazoned around it said something different though. Something he’d never said. Something being said _to_ him.

“ _Thank you, Prince of Hope_ ,” Kirigiri read aloud. “That’s interesting.”

“Wha- ”

“Hmm. Togami-kun might have been on to more than I thought…”

“But I –”

“Come on Naegi-kun,” Kirigiri said. “We’ll discuss this later. For now I think its best we get as far away from here as possible before dawn breaks.”


End file.
